Here’s a script idea:
Suzy Citygirl has to plan the perfect Christmas pageant or Bernard Bigbiz will fire her from her job at the Joyless Inc. Little does she know when she gets sent to Tinytown, Vermont on business she’ll meet Matty McSmall town. He owns the struggling local tinsel factory and needs to sell enough tinsel by Christmas or else his grandma won’t be allowed to have the surgery she needs to remove the tumor from her holiday spirt gland. Matty is also single dad that was widowed by a freak tinsel lathing accident and the little girl loves Sally Citygirl from the beginning and secretly helps her dad see past his pain.
With minutes to spare in the Christmas pageant/tumor deadline Suzy convinces Mr. Bigbiz to buy enough tinsel to save the Christmas pageant AND remove grandma’s tumor! But after throwing the perfect pageant she realizes Mr. Bigbiz is a terrible boss, and moves to Tinytown permanently. She falls in love with Matty, and gets a job at his tinsel factory. With her big business skills the struggling tinsel factory grows three sizes that day.
Mr. Bigbiz is ruined. He realizes the error of his ways and comes to Vermont to apologize. Now he too works at the tinsel factory, and loves life now. But don’t forget, throughout the movie the cast interacts with lovable bearded old man who may or may not be Santa, because wtf, why not?
I love how Suzy’s name changed at random.
I mean it’s Hallmark, is anything really of consequence?
These movies are not bad. I quite enjoy them. Sometimes I skip the predictable endings.
What about the predictable beginning and the predictable middle part, between the beginning and the end? I usually just skip those too.
I met the author… a guy who wrote the script for one of the pictured movies. He was doing stand-up comedy on a cruise ship. He said yes, they are all terrible, but there’s a certain audience for them and they’re quite profitable.
He said I want you to think of me when you’re forced to watch one of these. I want you to know who is responsible, and that I’m very sorry.
Assume AI writes them now.
Wow, that’s brutal. “I want you to know who did this to you!”
Who was he?
They probably cost next to nothing to produce, so even a small audience will make them profitable.
I wonder, if you could just cycle through the same 5 movies without anyone noticing.
It is kinda weird they haven’t made the Teletubbies decision to stop making new episodes once they have enough to loop. Once they have, what, three hundred? Then they can fill twelve hours per day from Halloween until Christmas. Shift those by a few movies every year and people will catch a whole different set based on when they watch TV.
They are definitely lower budget than ‘normal’ movies. But even as a low budget it still requires all the same production staff, camera, sound, editor, crew park staff, food services, wranglers, casting etc. The cheap part is unknown actors and not a lot of travel. Source: my wife has done background work on many movies and TV shows. As background they get paid to sit until call time. so scene maybe half hour, but all the background people waiting get a full hourly pay and all the food you want while waiting. You will notice on hallmark they zoom in tight so background is barely visible, this helps not having a large set of background people. in one movie at the mall they had my wife shopping and walking back and forth. it works for the scene but if you watched it closely you would notice the same lady in every scene carrying different boxes or bags.
They have two movies that are the same exact movie but told through two different main characters point of view. Same scenes and everything.
It’s actually an interesting idea on paper. And Hallmark is probably the perfect way to do something like that.
Hallmark red and hallmark blue. There are certain characters you can only get through trading with someone who watched the other film
It’s actually an interesting idea on paper.
I’m hearing an implied “but not on screen…”
None of them are interesting in practice, but the idea of two versions of a movie being filmed at once sounds like it could be cool. And if successful, would be almost twice as profitable as one.
The idea worked out pretty well in “To every you I’ve loved before” and “To me, the one who loved you”.
I somehow doubt Hallmark did quite as good a job of it.
You missed the best series of nonsense Christmas movies:
- Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas
- Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas
- Time for Him to Come Home for Christmas
- Time for You to Come Home for Christmas
- Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas
Yes these are legit hallmark movies.
So we’re still waiting for “Us” and “It” before we crack into the non-binary-centric pronouns, which we obviously won’t.
Is Time for It to Come Home for Christmas an Addams Family crossover?
Sports movie.
It’s the Thing, loosely disguised as one of the main characters from the previous movie but the plot works like groundhog day. Every misstep it makes ends in it dying to a flamethrower as it’s forced to comply with Hallmarks demands.
“Us” already exists
“Time for It To Come Home for Christmas” sounds vaguely ominous.
Right in the uncanny valley! Thanks for the trip!
these are targeted at boomers who are already programmed to feel guilty about about any decision that effects profit margins.
And it’s always some woman that lives in the same town her whole life. The man either just moved back or is new to the small town
Or, small town girl moved to the big city, returns to small town and sees that man iN a NeW LigHt
Or man womans woman at man then man man the woman
I like the halloween version that ends in door hand hook car door
Mister Sandman, sand me a sand
Man womans woman at man then the man man
I can watch that for free on the internet.
I recommend episode 3 of the Storylords podcast for a great horror version of these stupid Hallmark movies
They look a lot like the identikit romance books my mum would read. Even she didn’t know which one’s she’d read before. Be like three quarters of the way in and then go “oh, I’ve read this”.
Pretty sure ChatGPT could create those things by now, such is the limitless array of imagination on offer within.
Amusing, but every Lee Child book is like that too! Still enjoyed them in a kinda brain-mush way
I know some people like him but Dean Koontz might as well be filling out Mad Libs for all the originality in his stories. They’re enjoyable enough for brain-mush but barely even qualify as “books.”
Christ I last read one of his in the 90s and thought the same! He must be just smearing wallpaper paste on the pages by now 😂
They don’t need anything nearly as complicated as GPT LLMs . They already generate these scripts with a MS Word macro. It’s been like that for years.
Once in a while the source dictionary is updated. They sell the scripts in lots of like 20 and charge for any customized work.
I’m certain those books work the same way.
If you can think of a way that reduces work and increases profits. They are already doing it.
That’s their trademark, as soon as you see it you know it’s a Hallmark romantic, cheesy, family movie.
My grandmother loves these movies. Some channel started playing them since July and she’s basically watched and rewatched all of them by now.
I assume this was the same for the Harlequin Romance Novels too? I knew a few women over the years that had a bunch of these books. They seemed to digest them like monthly magazines.
In some ways it’s sort of a business dream to be able to keep repacking the same nuts and bolts to make something slightly different for consumers who will keep paying. It’s pretty efficient.
Still I’ve not read a Harlequin Romance nor have I seen a Hallmark movie. This doesn’t mean I’ve not seen all of the Star Wars movies or a good majority of the Marvel ones.
LitRPGs are like that, too.
Swing sword. Cast spell. Numbers go up. Defeat dragon. Complete quest. Numbers go up. Dungeon dive. Cool loot. Numbers go up.
I love them. I’ve read four this week.
To be fair, there are only 7 basic plots that exist
This is super cool had no idea about this! Thank you
Harlequin novels are bodice rippers and basically porn without pictures. Literate ladies are thirsty but want something top shelf to sip on.
Friend of mine’s dad used to write some Mills and Boon ones, which is the UK equivalent I suppose. We all found it hilarious. Had to sign up for one the ‘8 pre-approved plots’ in advance, and then got paid about a penny a word. You need to be properly cranking out text to even reach minimum wage - it would be easier to work stocking the shelves at a supermarket, quite frankly. But yeah, not an environment that fosters innovation.
“In some ways it’s sort of a business dream to be able to keep repacking the same nuts and bolts to make something slightly different for consumers who will keep paying. It’s pretty efficient.”
Madden. FIFA. Call of Duty.
At this point, Ubisoft and Bethesda games can be thrown in too.
When you have that almost perfect Stable Diffusion prompt and you’re trying to figure out what you have to change to get it that last little bit.
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no.
Those who love this kitschy schlock think it’s innovative.
Pop and stadium country are no different.
I’ve never heard someone say they wanted to listen to pop or stadium country music because it’s innovative. In fact, a hasty and anecdotal surveying of friends and neighbors says that they listen to the music because it’s easy to listen to (ie unchallenging).
Yeah they want a familiar sound they are accustomed to. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes I’ll go to a fast food chain because I know exactly what to expect and I don’t have to think about it too much.
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I feel like these movies are like pop songs. I just picture a big factory somewhere where they produce these things en masse.
Imagine the heavy smog hanging over the area 🤢
The striped death.
